Wage Theft – One Of The Common Employment Concerns In Minnesota

By Author: J. Ashwin Madia
Total Articles: 3
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One of the major issues that have been making employment lawyers in MN demanding nowadays is the wage theft charges. Usually, the employers in Minnesota pay their employees accurately on time. However, due to some reasons some of the employers withhold wages from their employees which is termed as wage theft. According to the reports of the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) around 39,000 workers face wage theft issues each year.

Therefore, for preventing the wage theft cases, the Minnesota Wage Theft Law has been established by the state. So what this new law is all about? What are the responsibilities of an employer? Let us find out more about this law in the following article.

First of all what is wage theft and when it occurs? To understand the Minnesota Wage Theft Law you need to first understand what wage theft is! Wage theft, as the name suggests is stealing the wage from an employee. However, the stealing is not literally like the thieves do! Here, in case of wage theft the employers do not pay their employees what they owe them for the work they have done. Isn’t that a kind of stealing? ...
... Of course yes. At times, employers fail to pay or avoid paying the earned wages and this is termed as wage theft.

Some of the common types of wage thefts in the workplace include

Paying less than the minimum wage to the employees
Not paying the overtime wage to the eligible employee
Making illegal deductions in the wages of the employees
Not compensating for the work done off-the-clock by an employee
Wrongfully classifying a worker as an independent contractor
Nonpayment of earned tips to the employees
Failing to give paycheck to an employee
Thieving the withheld taxes

To understand the concept of wage theft you must consult with an exercised and experienced Minnesota employment lawyer.

Minnesota Wage Theft Law
The complaints of thousands of workers/employees in Minnesota led to the establishment of the Minnesota Wage Theft Law by the state. This law helps the workers in receiving their proper wages from the employers. The law also sketches out new rules for the workers in Minnesota to follow which includes additional information regarding pay stubs. It also provides employees with a notice during the hire.

The Minnesota Wage Theft Law went into effect on 1st July, 2019. The rules set for the employers by this law includes changes in notifying employees, requirements of pay stub and requirements for recordkeeping.

As far as notification to be provided to the employees is concerned, it should include employment status of the employee, number of days in their pay period, a scheduled payday for the employee, date of the first paycheck receiving date, provision of paid leaves, sick time and other paid time off and many more. Moreover, the notice needs to be signed by the employees and a copy of the signed notice needs to be kept in the records by the employer.

Similarly, detailed pay stubs needs to be given to the employees which must include additional information about the payment such as rates of pay, frequency and basis of pay, meal and lodging allowances (if any), physical and mailing address of the business and employer’s contact number.

According to the Minnesota Wage Theft Law, employers need to keep detailed payroll records which should include signed notice by the employee, hours worked for piece rate employees and list of personnel policies provided to the employees. If you feel you have been a victim of wage theft, then you will need to produce these records for inspection.

To understand the Minnesota Wage Theft Law better you must consult with a professional Minnesota employment lawyer who has expertise in handling such cases in recent past.

Also there are penalties for not complying with the law! The penalties include jail and hefty fines. If you want to know more about the penalties you can get in touch with an expert Minneapolis employment lawyer.

If you are an employer then you also consult with the employment lawyers to assist you in how you can avoid committing wage theft at your business.

This article is written by Madia Law, LLC. You can find the best Minnesota employment lawyer at this firm who can help you with all sorts of employment issues including wage theft, harassment at workplace, illegal firing and more.